CPRC in the News: The Wall Street Journal, Detroit News, Star Tribune, Daily Caller

Aug 15, 2020 | Featured, Media Coverage

John Lott writes in a Newsweek op-ed:

Thirty-seven states have changed their mail-in voting procedures this year in response to the coronavirus. They have followed the lead of Democrats and the media, who claim that concerns about voter fraud and vote buying are figments of the Republican imagination… Liberals and progressives often try to model the U.S. on Western European countries, but you never hear them arguing that we should adopt their voting rules. There is a reason for that. Banning mail-in voting or requiring people to use photo IDs to obtain a mail-in ballot is quite common in developed countries, especially in Europe…

Among the 27 countries in the European Union, 63 percent ban mail-in voting unless living abroad and another 22 percent require a photo ID to obtain a mail-in ballot. Twenty-two percent ban the practice even for those who live abroad.

James Freeman, Best of the Web, Wall Street Journal, August 5, 2020.

Most developed countries, especially in Europe, ban mail-in voting to fight vast fraud and vote buying that had threatened the integrity of their elections, according to an exhaustive review of voting rules and histories in over 30 major nations.

In the European Union, 63% have put a ban on mailing in ballots except for citizens living overseas. Another 22% have imposed a ban even for those overseas. And most of those that allow mail-in ballots require some form of photo ID to get one, according to the report from the Crime Prevention Research Center shared with Secrets.

“These countries have learned the hard way about what happens when mail-in ballots aren’t secured. They have also discovered how hard it is to detect vote buying when both those buying and selling the votes have an incentive to hide the exchange,” said author John R. Lott, the center’s president.

While politicians in the United States have been debating the pros and cons of mail-in voting due to concerns of spreading COVID-19 at the polls and new reports of postal service and vote counting issues, Lott, whose center is known for its gun research, built a voting database of the European Union and the larger Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.

Paul Bedard, “Developed Countries ‘ban’ mail-in voting, US would be ‘laughing stock’,” Washington Examiner, August 5, 2020.

That follows national trends. The Crime Prevention Research Center noted that the number of women in the U.S. with concealed carry permits increased by 207 percent between 2012 and 2018.

Ed Dean,”Blacks and Women Helping Increase Gun Sales Across Florida and the U.S.,” Florida Daily, August 12, 2020.

John Lott’s latest is a handbook of useful numbers. . . .

Those looking for a handbook of pro-gun stats should check out Gun Control Myths, the latest from John R. Lott Jr. The author is a veteran of the gun-research wars: A quarter of a century ago, Lott’s famous “more guns, less crime” study set off an enormous wave of research into concealed-carry laws — which, he found (and others naturally disputed), reduced crime by allowing the law-abiding to arm themselves against criminals. Now he heads the Crime Prevention Research Center, which has continued to monitor these laws and issues studies on other crime-related topics as well.

The book weighs in at fewer than 200 pages, including extensive charts and footnotes, and is hardly a balanced review of the gun-control literature. I’m sure a gun-control supporter could write a book twice as long taking issue, in painstaking detail, with everything it says. But it nicely pokes holes in the common narrative in which gun control obviously works and guns are the only reason America has a high murder rate. Above all, it shows that there’s another side to just about any factoid you encounter in the mainstream media. . . .

Robert Verbruggen, “Book Review: ‘Gun Control Myths’ Handbook of Useful Numbers,” National Review, August 5, 2020.

This is how the Wall Street Journal reported it at the time:

“According to conservative statistician John Lott, Mr. Franken’s gains so far are 2.5 times the corrections made for Barack Obama in the state, and nearly three times the gains for Democrats across Minnesota Congressional races. Mr. Lott notes that Mr. Franken’s “new” votes equal more than all the changes for all the precincts in the entire state for the Presidential, Congressional and statehouse races combined (482 votes).

Jeff Dunetz, “Want proof voter fraud really exists? Here’s plenty of evidence,” Arutz Sheva Israel National News Channel 7, August 1, 2020.

This piece appeared in other news outlets. Star Tribune (Minneapolis), August 10, 2020; Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minnesota), August 14, 2020; Boston Herald, August 11, 2020; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, August 11, 2020; Virginia-Pilot, August 10, 2020; Chattanooga Times Free Press, August 10, 2020; The Columbian (Vancouver, WA), August 11, 2020; La Crosse Tribune (La Crosse, Wisconsin), August 12, 2020; Lima News (Ohio), August 10, 2020; and Northern New York Newspapers, August 21, 2020.

All kinds of scholarly studies have found multiple dangers reside in mail-in ballots, and, if you do not believe in that conclusion, ask former President Jimmy Carter. Fifteen years ago he was on a bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform that concluded, “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.” The source here is John Lott in the Wall Street Journal, and he talks about how an easily examined mail-in ballot was once a chief means of vote buying, thereby leading to the secret ballots that made the practice harder for a simple reason. 

Lott says that while so many are going around saying there is no voter fraud, there is indeed fraud, as in the Dallas City Council finding 700 mail-in ballots all signed by a witness with a made-up name. In San Pedro, California, 83 ballots were sent to a small apartment, meaning either that the rent per person was tiny and sleep at night awkward or somebody was pulling a fast one

Jay Ambrose, “Trump vs. critics on mail-in ballots,” Detroit News, August 11, 2020.

Some observers are concerned about whether a government agency, the United States Postal Service, long-criticized for its lack of efficiency, can handle an unprecedented onslaught of mail-in-ballots.

“Even if there are error rates by the United States Postal Service of a couple of percent, we are talking about millions of ballots,” John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, a think tank headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, told The Epoch Times.

“An audit of the 2018 election by the USPS found that the share of election and political mail that was delivered on time averaged 84.2%” in THE SEVEN lowEST-performing DISTRIBUTION CENTERS such as suburban Maryland, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Royal Palm, Florida. “With the surge in election-related mail that is going to occur this year, that percent would be a disaster involving tens of millions of votes.”

The USPS report, issued by the agency’s inspector general, found that high-performing locations such as Seattle, Washington, Norfolk, Virginia, and Southern Maine, averaged 99.6 percent on-time performance for electoral and political mail.

“Democrats are claiming that President Trump is trying to sabotage the postal system, but this audit was done long before mail-in ballots became an issue this year,” Lott said.

Matthew Vadum, “Election Security Debate Heats Up Over Mail-In Ballots,” Epoch Times, April 11, 2020.

John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, who has researched the question extensively, notes that “[i]n  state after state, the data show that permit holders are extremely law-abiding, even relative to police officers,”making it very unlikely that licensees are driving crime or lawlessness in New York City or elsewhere.

“Gun Licensees And Privacy In The Empire State,” Daily Caller, August 3, 2020.

Thanks to Townhall columnist and criminology professor Dr. Mike Adams, 70 young, impressionable minds will be exposed to the abortion issue, gun control, Black Lives Matter, the death penalty and more through a conservative lens, with required reading by John R. Lott Jr., Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), and Heather Mac Donald, to name just a few.

Leah Barkoukis, “Longtime Townhall Columnist Mike Adams Has Died,” Townhall, July 23, 2020.

Mail-in ballots are a disaster.

According to John Lott’s respected Crime Prevention Research Center:

In the European Union, 63% have put a ban on mailing in ballots except for citizens living overseas. Another 22% have imposed a ban even for those overseas. And most of those that allow mail-in ballots require some form of photo ID to get one, according to the report from the Crime Prevention Research Center shared with Secrets.

Monica Showalter, “Most of Europe bans mail-in ballots over high risk of fraud-study,” American Thinker, August 6, 2020.

Democrats have been pushing mail-in voting for years, but they have really ramped up their efforts ahead of November’s election.  One of the primary concerns expressed by Republicans up to and including President Trump is the increased threat of voting fraud.

Democrats and their media mouthpieces dismiss this as delusional and paranoid, but as it turns out, concerns about mail-in voting fraud are a paranoid delusion shared by most countries of the world.

Fox News reports:

A new report highlights the restrictive laws most European countries and other developed areas throughout the world have in regards to mail-in voting, contrasting highly permissive U.S. regulations, as the debate over the security of the practice ramps up ahead of the presidential election.

The report, commissioned by the conservative Crime Prevention Research Center and released Monday, examines voting laws in countries in the European Union (EU), non-EU states in Europe and members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) — an international body consisting largely of developed and free countries throughout Europe, North America, Asia and South America. . . .

Staff, “Report: Mail-In Voting Severely Restricted In Most Countries, Contrary to Democrat Demands In U.S.,” Legal Insurrection, August 10, 2020.

Meanwhile, Trump’s Republican allies warn that states need to do more to prevent fraud. “Without basic precautions, our elections are on course to become the laughingstock of the developed world,” said John Lott, a conservative pundit, gun rights advocate and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center.

Lott’s sentiments came only hours after Trump’s Twitter request to delay the Nov. 3 election unless more safeguards are in place. You can expect plenty of more warnings from Trump supporters and others in the coming months.

Mike Kelly, “Why won’t America safeguard the upcoming presidential election?,” NorthJersey.com, July 31, 2020.

“If concern about vote fraud with mail-in ballots is delusional, it is a delusion that is shared by most of the world,” John R. Lott noted in an Aug. 3 report for the Crime Prevention Research Center.

Lott referenced cases of deceased voters receiving mail-in ballots, including 458,000 in California; a report that 83 mail-in ballots went to a single, two-bedroom apartment; and reports of fraud in Pennsylvania mail-in voting that resulted in giving Democrats control of the state Senate in 1994.

“Even the countries that allow mail-in ballots have protections, such as government-issued photo IDs. But Americans are constantly assured even this step is completely unnecessary. Without basic precautions, our elections are on course to become the laughing stock of the developed world,” Lott said.

Mail-in voting is banned in most of the countries that the Left seeks to model the U.S. after, according to Lott’s review of voting rules and histories in over 30 major nations. . . .

Staff, “‘Laughing stock’ of developed world: Why mail-in voting is universally dismissed,” World Tribune, August 5, 2020.

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